April 8th, 2009

What a Ridiculous Day

My day started out sucky at 2 a.m. – and it has only gotten worse.  I must have done something bad for the universe to be this pissy with me.

    Sucky Incident #1 – 2:00 AM: The only three times in the last year that I have gotten a decent stretch of sleep (and by decent I mean 4-5 hours) I have awoken each time with a plugged milk duct.  The second time, I got mastitis, which is something I honestly would not wish on my very worst enemy.  The strange part is that I can easily go 6-7 hours between pumping when I'm awake without even getting all that engorged.  But g*d forbid I get an ounce of sleep.  I have come to think of plugged ducts as my punishment for getting a tiny bit more rest than the universe apparently wants me to have.

So last night I woke up at 2 a.m. with a rock hard wedge in my right breast.  I poked John and told him to go get Julesy so I could nurse him.  Well, after Julesy drained the rest of the breast, the rock hard wedge was just that much more pronounced.  I went to look in the bathroom mirror and I could actually see it then.  My boob looked half deflated.  I went back in the bedroom and told Huz to feel it and as soon as he touched it he jumped back and said "Holy crap!"  So, I jumped in the tub and started trying to work it out, like I did the first time this happened (the time I didn't get mastitis).  Luckily this time I knew exactly what I was looking for, and I located the little white sliver right away. It only took a few seconds of squeezing and it popped out, then the geiser of milk flowed behind it.  The most insane thing happened next — it KEPT shooting out.  I wasn't milking myself at all, I just cupped my breast on either side and watched it shoot out a stream of breastmilk halfway across the tub for 8 or 9 straight minutes (I was watching the clock.)  Imagine if you filled a water balloon and stuck a tiny pinhole in it.  It would shoot out a little pin-sized stream of water until he was completely deflated.  That's exactly what my breast did.  Man, these are some weird-ass parts we females have.

After the geiser died down, I got out of the bathtub, pumped 5 more ounces, then laid in bed for another hour and a half unable to sleep.

Sucky Incident #2 – 7:30 AM:  When I woke up with Julesy this morning, I realized his eye was almost swollen shut.  It was looking kind of bruised yesterday and the day before, but we thought it might just be an irritation from allergies, and decided to keep an eye on it to see if it got worse. Well, this morning, it was much, much worse.  He looked like a boxer.  So we rushed around calling the doctor, seeing what could be done, then getting him ready to go to the doctor with Grandma while we had to go off to work.*

Sucky Incident #3 – 9:00 AM:  I get to work, open my backpack, and realize I don't have my laptop with me.  My company-issued, only-computer-I-have-at-work laptop; the laptop that I absolutely must have in order to complete any work at all.  I was so distracted by the puffy-eyed baby that I completely forgot to put my laptop in my backpack.  Since I'm all the way downtown, I know it will take me a few hours back and forth (dependant on the train schedule) to go home and retrieve it. Crap!

I called MIL to see if she was already on her way to the doctor, thinking she might be able to bring it to me.  She was already on her way, but offered to turn around and bring it to me.  Since I knew she was already running late for the doctor, and since I didn't want to make her drag the kids all the way downtown, I decided just to tell my boss about the missing laptop and see what she suggested.  Luckily she'd had the same thing happen to her some months back.  She told me that our technical center had loaners they could give me for the day – so that's what I'm typing on now.  Of course I'm missing some files I need to get some things completed, but all-in-all I can live without my own laptop for just one day.

It's 11 a.m.  How much worse could it get today?  I have a midterm tonight.  Perhaps I'll bomb it and wrap up this day on the same sour note it started on.

Wish me luck…

_______________________

*BTW, it turns out Julesy's swollen eye is from an ear infection – the infection spread from his sinuses, into his ear, and caused the fluid to build up behind his eye.  crazy. Some antibiotics have been prescribed to treat the mess.

April 4th, 2009

Pink and Purple Twilight Zone

I’ve made it quite clear that I want a daughter.  After today’s “incident” – I wonder if I have any idea what I’m wishing for.

We went to the Husband’s friend’s house for her little girl’s 5th birthday party.  She’s adorable, and apparently has quite a big crush on me.  Her mom tells me she listens to my CD until it wears holes in her mother’s ears, and she named one of her new baby dolls “Gina” today.  It’s sweet.  I’ve never done anything particularly fun with her, but I guess she must find something fun about me.

A few hours into the party we were sitting around the table and all the little girls were hanging out in the Birthday Girl’s room, playing Barbies or whatever it is little girls do.  All the sudden one of the other little girls, let’s call her Seven Year Old, came out and asked me if I would come into the bedroom with her to help her with something.  I was a little flattered that she’d pick me, so I took her hand and followed her into the room.

Just as I got in there with all the girls, Seven Year Old shuts the door hard behind me and locks it.  Then she turns to me with all the seriousness of a 25 yr old and says, “You’re going to clean up this room now.”

I laugh a little at the unexpected demand and I say “so, I’m guessing your mommy told you that you have to clean up when you’re done playing, right?”  She replies, “Yes, but we’re not going to clean it up, you are,” and she was as serious as a heart attack.

Just then, the pink and purple wall start to close in on me a little, and I say nervously, “No, I’m going back to the table, I think you guys can clean this up.”  Seven Year Old says “We locked the door, you’re not going anywhere.”

I notice all four girls start to pile in front of the door in an attempt to barricade me in.  I start to wonder if I’m hallucinating.  These girls aren’t joking.  The Pepto-Bismol walls and floor carpeted in Barbies, coupled with these four-foot-high dictators disguised as princesses, started to make me panic a little.

I say “Well, I can use my phone to call and have somebody let me out,” realizing just then that I actually didn't have my phone with me, which started my heart racing a little.  Then, I just go for it, and start to try to pull the door open.  Don’t ever underestimate the strength and determination of a group of girls.  I got the door open just enough to yell an exasperated “Can somebody help me here??!?!!?”

Seven Year Old’s mom comes running over, and by this time 3 of the girls have ahold of my leg, refusing to let me out the door.  I’m struggling to pull free, and SYO’s Mom has to start scolding them all about how they’re going to hurt me and make me fall down.

I finally pull free and run out of the room, embarrassed and discombobulated.  What just happened?  Did I really just get overtaken by a tiny gaggle of girls?  Did they really think I was going to fall for that?  Do I look stupid?

I relay the story to the Husband, who is peeing himself laughing… but I’m still a little shaken.  It was touch and go there for a minute.  And then I wonder… are all little girls just tiny little lunatics in training? 

If that’s the case, perhaps I don’t want one after all.

December 12th, 2008

When there is no home to go to.

Lately, I've been feeling more and more depressed about my mom-less situation.  I don't have a mother.  I have never had one.  Sure, a woman gave birth to me, then proceeded to abuse and abandon me.  That woman left me on the doorsteps of grandparents and other relatives who passed me around for 18 years.  That woman never cared what happened to me, or that I was beaten by her father on almost a daily basis when I lived with him.  I have not spoken to that woman in 3 years – and hardly spoke to her before that.

I have no real "father" either.  The boy whose 14 year old testicles contributed to my conception is still in my life, but not really as a "father."  He was never a father.  I never really knew him until I was an adult, and really how much of a "father" can he be when we're practically the same age?  His mother and brothers took me on the weekend a few times a year, and bought me clothes and toys.  But no one did anything about the fact that my father was absent.  And no one did anything about the daily abuse and neglect I faced as a child.

In my family, these things weren't talked about.  I can't even talk to my aunt about it, who was raised (and beaten, and abused) the same way I was, because to her it's water under the bridge.  It's something we are just supposed to "get over."  I thought I "got over it" years ago… but maybe not.

As I get older, I'm becoming so envious of people with actual parents.  The older I get, the more I realize that I will never have that feeling.  I always thought if I could get my own life together, then things will finally be normal.  But they won't.  Things won't ever be normal for me.  I will never have a Mom and Dad.  I don't even understand the relationship dynamics of having real parents.

I suppose some will say I need therapy to deal with things like this.  But therapy doesn't do a lot for me.  I don't respond well.  I have thought lately about trying to get my dad in a room and explain to him how much his absense has truly affected me, but then I just feel like an asshole who's trying to unload on him when he only did the best he could — he was a child himself after all.  And nothing can be done about my mother.  She is nonexistent to me…. there is no chance for repairing anything there.

I don't know…. I've just been depressed lately.  Maybe everything (meaning my entire life, not just my crazy schedule) is catching up with me.  It's especially hard to a motherless daughter around the holidays.

I wish it was possible to be adopted at 30.

May 8th, 2006

Being reminded of old friends.

I once knew this girl who talked shit about everybody she knew.  We’d be hanging out, someone would walk in, she’d be super-nice to their face, and as soon as they’d leave, she’d be talking shit about them.  I began to notice that she was always somehow friends with these people that she constantly talked shit about.

It took me three years to realize that if she talked shit to me about everybody else, then she was definitely talking shit about me too.

I divorced this friend the minute I realized that I was also being dogged behind my back.  I actually overheard a phone conversation when she thought I was asleep.  It was a messy split, but I’ve always known it was the right thing to do.  No Looking Back.

Those who talk shit to you, are talking shit about you.

Now, often times I have some very unkind things to say about people too, and I fault no one for having a negative opinion about someone. However, I won’t say something about someone behind their back that I won’t also say to their face.  I make sure that people know exactly how I feel about them, if I in fact feel anything at all.

Perhaps this is why I have so few friends.  I don’t play the game.  Perhaps this is why so many little scenesters didn’t like my band.  I don’t play the game.  When someone wrongs me, they’re gone.  When I have a low opinion of someone, I don’t keep them around.  I have no time in my life for weak characters, which helps me appreciate the few people I do consider worthy.  Call it bravado, but I see selectivity as intelligence.

And every so often, I’m reminded again that it is time to clean house.

March 30th, 2006

I’ve Got Time On My Hands….

I need a hobby.  Something to take my mind off the whole waiting-for-a-job thing, and the whole waiting-for-this-baby-to-come-out thing.

A couple of weeks ago I started scrapbooking an album for the baby.  The problem is that the baby only had his picture taken once so far (the ultrasound)….. so there’s not alot of material to scrapbook with.  Besides, I’m not very good at it.  My aunt actually has what could qualify as an entire scrapbooking store in her home, and her stuff puts mine to shame.

I like to sew, but I’d need to buy an expensive sewing machine to get started, and the goal is not to waste any more money while I’m waiting for the job.
I can only clean the house so many times before I want to throw the cats out the window for all the hair they leave everywhere.  Plus, that’s not a hobby; it’s a chore.  And if I bake any more cakes, my ass is going to turn into a cake.

I really need something to take my mind off of everything right now.  Sitting, waiting, can drive a person insane.  So, please, help me think of a hobby.  And no, don’t tell me to write songs….. that’s not a hobby, that’s work.  Also, the hobby should involve very little physical exertion, because it’s hard for me to move around these days.

Help.